We’ve missed a couple of Friday recaps, in part due to COVID and travel. But don’t worry, we’re back! I’ll include some (not all) of the pieces I intended to include in previous recaps but will primarily try to keep it present.
I will do my best to isolate when pieces I link are videos, podcasts and/or behind paywalls (marked with a $).
My Work or Work I Published:
I wrote a piece about how quarterback volatility might drive the decision to start a nominally “worse” player at the position. It’s about Joshua Dobbs
Luke Braun put together a film room piece on the way blitzes work in the Brian Flores defense
James Pogatshnik introduces readers to a new fantasy system called the Hell League
Podcast: The Wide Left Podcast had its first episode following it’s re-launch. This episode covered the situation in Gaza, with extensive show notes.
Podcast: Norse Code is also being released through Wide Left. You can find the most recent episode, previewing the Raiders game, here.
Video/Podcast: On the Minnesota Football Party, we broke down the decision to start Joshua Dobbs
Video/Podcast: I was on the Purple Insider podcast with Matthew Coller to talk about evaluating the Vikings front office going forward
I guess I had a weird spat with Machine Gun Kelly
Work I Liked (Sports):
There’s been a ton of stuff written and produced this week covering the Brian Flores defense. Much of it started because of Kevin Seifert’s excellent piece in ESPN detailing the influences on the NFL’s most novel defense.
Over at Match Quarters, there’s a piece breaking down how exactly the coverages in the defense work on blitzes ($).
There are two posts at the Purple Pain forums worth highlighting. The first one uses the bye week as a means of evaluating the EPA per play of a number of players on the Vikings. It includes some harsh words for Alexander Mattison.
The second post grades the 2021 draft. I actually don’t agree with the grades in a number of instances, but it is at least an impressively thorough look at the final draft class of the Rick Spielman era.
This is part two ($) of Tyler Dunne’s explosive three-part series on the Buffalo Bills and Sean McDermott, where he revealed the 9/11 story everyone is talking about
There’s been a bizarre story about Jamal Adams going after a reporter’s wife. You can read about it here.
The Athletic’s breakdown ($) of David Tepper’s interference in the Carolina Panthers is well reported.
This revealing piece by Joel Anderson at Slate details ESPN’s decline — and how ESPN kept on trying to hide it by blaming it on employees being “political”
This piece from Karim Zidan on Arab athletes and their solidarity with Gaza.
Work I Liked (Non-Sports):
Video: YouTuber hbomberguy unleashed a hellstorm in his video on plagiarism. He covered a few instances, historical and contemporary, but the bulk of the video was queer video essayist James Somerton. The four-hour video is well worth watching.
Video: Also, Todd in the Shadows released a two-hour video after that where Somerton evidently just made up his own facts when he wasn’t plagiarizing.
Video: This video from Alexander Avila goes into the politics of self-diagnosis and how we interact with the notion that institutions do the best job of identifying mental illness
Video: Cody Johnston of Some More News goes into the fragile creator economy
This piece goes into the history of women labor journalists in Minnesota
The Defector has a fascinating piece on what it means to engage in de-extinction efforts
Parker Molloy explores the strange reaction to the GTA VI announcement ($)
Video: Owen Jones talks about the “massacre within a massacre” of journalists specifically dying in Gaza.
One prominent example of a poet and writer dying in Gaza that is gaining traction is Dr. Refaat Alareer, who was critical of Israel and was highlighted by former New York Times writer Bari Weiss. He was killed in an Israeli air strike
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor argues that there is evidence that this air strike was deliberate and surgical.